Op-Ed: Obama’s torso and the vacuous nature of the media

A few days ago there was some footage in the press of US president elect Obama on holiday in Hawaii with his shirt off.

The press couldn’t get enough of it and excited newsreaders, female or otherwise, were getting giddy at the sight of the man’s bare chest. Pretending to turn it into a serious news item, some media outlets compared Obama’s torso with the six-pack equivalents of other world leaders such as Putin and Tony Blair. You see, it had journalistic integrity after all. The modern obsession with vacuous celebrity culture where someone with no talent and no perceivable achievements can have their mug on the television and rake in some cash is worrying. Now there is a new exciting chapter in American politics approaching and still all the media (and we) are interested in is how buff and pumped the next president looks. I suppose everything about Obama will become newsworthy just because it concerns him as the new kid on the media block and lots of people are still in a glorious state of shock after the US elections. And perhaps the media know exactly what we the consuming public, want and subsequently we get it in bite-size chunks on a daily basis. I just wish the mainstream wasn’t quite so superficial and shallow in its approach to what matters. In the end we can choose not to open a newspaper, not to switch on the television news or listen to the radio. My New Year’s resolution is to be more discerning.